50,000 Point Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card is Back [Expired]

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This offer is currently no longer available. Please check the Hot Deals tab for the latest offers.

I don’t currently get a referral for any of these Southwest Airline credit card deals. I write about them because I’ve got these cards and think it is cool that Emily can fly with me for free for a year just because I opened a credit card or two.

(Thanks to commenter Nathan for showing me how to make a picture link to another website!)

I had a link to an unpublicized version of the 50,000 offer in the Hot Deals and Airline Credit Cards tab since November, but it is nice to see the offer resurface on the Southwest Airlines home page.

As many readers know, the 50,000 credit card sign-on bonus from the Southwest Airlines credit card is currently counting towards the 110,000 points required for a Southwest Airlines Companion Pass. However, this could change at any time and without prior notice.

If you earn the Companion Pass in 2012, you’ll get to designate a companion who flies free with you up to the end of 2013. That’s close to 2 years of free flying!

The ability to have a companion fly free with you for close to 2 years is seriously one of the best deals in miles and points land. And Southwest awards are one of the easiest award to book – if there is a flight available, it is yours for miles and points.

There are 2 types of Southwest Rapid Rewards cards, both of which award you the sign-on bonus after the 1st purchase.

1. Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier.

Both the personal and the business versions of the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier offer 50,000 bonus points (worth up to $833 in free travel), but they have a $99 fee which is not waived during the 1st year.

However, you get a 6,000 annual point bonus which covers the cost of the $99 fee.

2. Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus.

Just like the Rapid Reward Premier card, you get a 50,000 point sign-up bonus (worth $833 in free travel) with the personal and business Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus card.

But the annual fee is $69 which gets you a 3,000 point yearly bonus.

If you plan on keeping the card for more than 1 year, the Rapid Rewards Premier card is the better choice since the $99 fee is worth exactly 6,000 points.

But if you plan on cancelling the card before 1 year, you’re better off with the $69 Rapid Reward Plus card.

Bottom Line: If you fly domestically in the US, the Southwest 50,000 point credit cards are worth a closer look. Even if the 50,000 points doesn’t count toward the Companion Pass, you still get $833 worth of flights on Southwest for just the cost of the annual fee.

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241 responses to “50,000 Point Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card is Back [Expired]”

giving my past call center experience, I’d like to shed some light why you shouldn’t feel nervous to call them.
1. Cheer them up, say something positive, weather, city, you name it. you will feel it’s a snap to get you approved when you started to make friend with the person over the phone
2. each agent works as a shift, basically 8 hours, they might feel boring on the phone, if you motivated their interesting on anything, you are ahead already
3. each agent has their own flex and authorization limit to approve you or decline you. so, treat them well.

Just as an update, it looks like the links in the “Update” box no longer work. The only one that seems to go to an application currently for a personal card is the one in the “1. Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier” section.

@Kevin - I don’t understand the calculations. You need 110K points for the Companion Pass, so I don’t see how #1 & #2 gets you the Companion Pass?
@Sheryl – Sorry to hear about that! I’d call back (sooner rather than later) after reading Keith’s suggestions below.

@Keith – Thanks for helping out!

@Ben - Great experience and thanks for sharing!

@John… – Thanks for letting me know. I’ updated the links to redirect to the Airline Credit Card tab which lists the current offers.

Companion Pass Earned! I received notification yesterday. Can’t wait to plan our first free trip! I did want to share the fine print I noticed when I pulled up the companion pass page:

…
2 Tier qualifying points are earned from revenue flights during the qualifying year or through select Rapid Rewards Credit Cards from Chase and are exclusive of bonuses or promotions. Revenue flights flown in 2011 before March 1st earned Rapid Rewards credits along with Tier Qualifying Points
…

I’m assuming here that “Tier Qualifying Points” are the 110,000 SW points to get the companion pass. Maybe its been said before (I have not seen it, however), but this was the first time I actually saw anything in black and white, from Southwest, indicating that the Chase SW points were to count towards qualification.

Sean: That’s actually a little odd. First, TIER qualifying points refers to A-List status — not the Companion Pass. Tier Status is completely unrelated to CP. Second, RR Credit Card purchases actually do NOT qualify towards Tier status — so it is odd that they state that Tier qualifying points ARE earned through “select RR Credit Cards”. Third, that actually is supposed to be just a FOOTNOTE at the bottom of the CP page — it is the same FOOTNOTE that appears on the A-List Tier Status page. What is funny is that, on the CP page, nothing even references that footnote! An actual reference of Footnote #2 ONLY appears on the A-List Tier Status page. It looks like the web designers just copy and pasted it over to the CP page even though it doesn’t apply.

But, in any case, still very odd — since, again, points earned from purchases on the RR Credit Card do NOT actually count towards the Tier Status at all. Only towards CP — which Southwest doesn’t normally call “Tier Status” at all — they only use that to reference the A-List Status normally.

John/Ken – Very Interesting. The confusion for me arose in the fact that that footnote wording appeared on a page related only to the companion pass. Obviously a mistake of some sort. Just glad the Chase activity counts towards companion pass status where it counts, in the accumulation of points!

I applied and was approved for the premier before it disappeared – yea! I decided to pass on balance transfer offer. I submitted a premier app for my husband and he got the “being reviewed” message. I used the same amount of household income, but he has been at his job for less than 1 year (rounded to 1 year on the app). He does not want to call the reconsideration line -he’s just doesn’t care what a great offer this is Anyway, aside from him calling, are there any other options to get him approved, or do you think he wouldn’t get approved anyway? Thanks again – Julie

@Gabriel – I can’t find any online, but let me know if you find any and I’ll update the post.

@Julie – I’d call the reconsideration line – you’re looking at $833 worth of travel! You could ask him to authorize the rep to talk with you and then you could do the negotiating. Or you could wait until you get a letter in the mail.

Thanks for the quick reply. I didn’t know he could authorize me to talk in a cc situation, so I will work on talking him into doing that much when the letter comes. It is such an amazing offer – thanks again for all your help! Julie

Couple of questions…
1) Has anyone been able to find a new link to the 50K Southwest offers? Offer seems to be dead.
2) I had a personal SW Visa Signature card several years ago (3?), but closed it after the 1st year to avoid the annual fee. I’m a little unclear as to if I can re-apply AND be eligible for the bonus miles. If I re-applied, is there a chance that I WOULD get approved but NOT get the bonus miles? (I’ll apply for the business card, for sure, once I can find a good link to the 50K offer.) Thanks for the great info!

Tyler: The 50,000 points ARE the “two free tickets.” You use them to buy your tickets — you spend them for tickets on Southwest.com under your Rewards account. (And, you can actually often get MORE than 2 free tickets out of the 50,000 points if you watch for good deals and such.)

Well, my husband’s letter came and we called the reconsideration line. I spoke with the rep, and after holding a while, he came back and said they could not approve it. I am soooo bummed. He has nothing negative at all in his credit history, but also, it seems he has no credit history of his own at all. Everything is in my name, and even though he is an authorized user on a couple cards, it doesn’t count I guess. Any suggestions on how to get started, so we could try for this again down the road? Thank you! Julie

@Julie – I’d call back a few times to see if they can get him approved. Surely he has taken out a loan at some time? If not, he should get a basic card (Citi Forward card, Capital 1) to establish a credit history before applying for miles and points cards.

I was approved for the chase SW card and made my first purchase on 5/18. They say it can take 6-8 weeks for the points to show up. From your experience does it usually take this long? If so is there any was to expedite the process and get the points sooner ?

I applied for and received both the Plus and Premier personal cards . When I talked to the representatives activating my cards, one of them said that if I had more than one Southwest card, I would only get the bonus on the first one that I was approved for… she didn’t seem to know for sure if I had been approved for more than one, and I didn’t exactly volunteer the information. Do you think I’ll get the miles on both? They are different products, and perhaps she was referring to if I had gotten the exact same card during the previous offer this spring, which I did not, but I didn’t want to say too much. Any thoughts?

Hi, I got approved for the SW Personal Premier card july 2011 but cancelled it a few weeks ago because I didn’t want to pay for the annual fee. They also didn’t try to retain me as a customer. Since I cancelled the card recently, do you think I would be able to apply for the SW Business Plus card? Would I have to call the reconsideration line if I don’t get approved instantly since it’s been a full year?
Or can the Personal Premier card be churnable? Thanks. If I do apply, should I use the same RR number or get a new one?

@Swap, there is no hard limit, depending on your credit pull, are you using app-o-rama ?and etc.. normally, i’d say get one Chase personal and one business card at the same time after 3-4 months. you will still need to call recon once you have two or more chase cards anyway. But, do not try to snag one personal and one business SW card, it won’t work. my experince is i got all four of cards following my 3-4 months and 1p1b rules….

The Southwest offer I was getting for 50000 pts. after one purchase have stopped. I know get offer for 50000 pts. if I spend $1000 in first three months. I still have a email offer from May for the original one purchase ,
50000. Will they still honor it if I fill out that application?

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